Systematic Thought

If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves … There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

– Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Another way of putting it is that mental models are at the root of the results we are getting. The models are not reality. They are an abstraction of reality that must be improved to get better results.